The former Harrison Hospital building in Bremerton is finally being torn down. But it won’t completely disappear — at least, not the distinctive yellow sandstone blocks that have made up its exterior for decades.
Bremerton’s Mick Hersey, who has worked on veterans memorials and volunteers to maintain cemeteries around Kitsap, found a unique way to repurpose a small part of the building, in the process honoring the hospital’s founders, Benjamin and Angie Harrison, and Kitsap’s military history.
As the work to demolish the nearly 60-year-old building on Cherry Avenue got underway this summer, Hersey, a 68-year-old Bremerton veteran known for restoring veteran memorials for over a decade, stopped by the site to ask if he could take some sandstone blocks. He wanted to build a flower planter in front of the Harrisons’ tomb at Ivy Green Cemetery, on Bremerton’s west side.
The construction company said yes.
So Hersey drove his pickup and moved eight loads of blocks from the hospital to his carport. Currently, about 100 pieces of sandstone blocks are stored at his house. He’s chipped off the cement mortar on the blocks so they may be evenly stacked, and even collected five buckets of cement mortar that may be used as backfill later.